Advances in semiconductor manufacturing technology have resulted in, among other things, reducing the cost of sophisticated electronics to the extent that integrated circuits have become ubiquitous in the modern environment.
As is well-known, integrated circuits are typically manufactured in batches, and these batches usually contain a plurality of semiconductor wafers within and upon which integrated circuits are formed through a variety of semiconductor manufacturing steps, including, for example, depositing, masking, patterning, implanting, etching, and so on.
Completed wafers are tested to determine which die, or integrated circuits, on the wafer are capable of operating according to predetermined specifications. In this way, integrated circuits that cannot perform as desired are not packaged, or otherwise incorporated into finished products.
It is common to manufacture integrated circuits on roughly circular semiconductor substrates, or wafers. Further, it is common to form such integrated circuits so that conductive regions disposed on, or close to, the uppermost layers of the integrated circuits are available to act as terminals for connection to various electrical elements disposed in, or on, the lower layers of those integrated circuits. These conductive regions are commonly referred to as pads, or bond pads. During testing, which is often referred to as wafer probing or wafer sorting, the pads are commonly contacted with a probe card. Such wafer probing typically includes mounting the wafer on a moveable chuck that is used to position the wafer relative to a probe card and to hold the wafer in place during testing.
As the physical dimensions of integrated circuits continue to shrink, the pad size and pad pitch have also been shrinking. Consequently, it has become more difficult and costly to manufacture and maintain probe cards that are capable contacting integrated circuits with small pads with tight pad pitch.
What is needed are methods and structures for reducing the need for high precision and high maintenance probe cards.